Well, I certainly did not expect to wake up on Monday morning and be greeted with the news that a deal between the APL and Destination NSW would see all male and female A-League grand finals locked in to a Sydney stadium for the next three seasons.
Every business decision produces winners and losers, with the publicly stated reasoning behind them misleading at best and fraudulent at worst.
In the case of the A-Leagues, fans of interstate teams will be rightfully up in arms.
Behind the move is a misguided and insulting insinuation that long-standing club members will have the flexibility and funds to simply travel to watch their team compete on the biggest day of the season.
No doubt, some will manage it. However, thousands of fans will be frozen out of attending a match they may have waited decades to see.
Of course, it will not be a problem for fans of Sydney FC, Western Sydney Wanderers, Macarthur FC, Newcastle Jets or Central Coast Mariners. In fact, with the next three grand finals certain to be locked into the most appropriate stadium considering the potential number of supporters, the decision will in fact benefit them.
Fans of the NSW clubs now not only enjoy the comfort of knowing they will not be travelling far and wide should they qualify for the big day, they also know that the stadium options available to the APL almost ensures them of a ticket.
Lucky for them. Not so for Brisbane, Melbourne – or, worse still – Adelaide, Perth and Wellington fans, many of whom will already know this travel is simply not an option.
With the A-League Women attendance and those regularly engaging with the competition around a fifth of the numbers of the A-League Men, it is of particular concern for the female brand.
Should the impressive Adelaide United and Western United continue their strong starts to the season and meet to decide the champions, one can only imagine the scenes on grand final day, and the barbs coming the way of the APL from media sources with a history of sinking the boot into football.
However, the APL have done all in their power to sell the idea, citing the ability to build a ‘festival of football’ around the week leading into the grand finals, as though this rests entirely on the knowledge of the venue.
Most insulting of all is the statement from Danny Townsend, naively attempting to equate a final hosted in London to an A-League decider potentially played in front of a couple of thousand fans.
“This is a unique opportunity to build a tradition for football fans,” the APL chair said.
“When you think about a cup final in England, you think about the trip to Wembley, and we want fans in Australia to look forward to the A-Leagues finals in the same way.”
Danny Townsend (Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)
Of course, we all know why this has occurred and the true financial arrangements behind the decision are unlikely to be released.
However, with $26 million in visitor expenditure claimed to be injected into the NSW economy when “tens of thousands” of football fans arrive to celebrate the festival, the state is certainly the most obvious winner.
The APL stand to benefit, with the deal struck no doubt financially pleasing and when Minister for Tourism Ben Franklin dropped the name of the APL’s official hotel partner, it was not hard to join the dots and understand that, once again, this decision has absolutely nothing to do with fans.
The APL has dropped the ball on this one, yet will not back down any time soon. They may even get lucky with two NSW-based teams qualifying for the grand finals and both men’s and women’s deciders played before bumper crowds.
If not, it could be a disaster and the financial forecasting will be way off the mark if people are unable or unwilling to travel.
clipper
Roar Rookie
NRL has mostly Sydney teams and AFL has mostly Melbourne teams, so that argument isn't really solid. Wembly is for the FA cup. All of them have a long history and people have more or less accepted it. There's no history of having it at Sydney for the A-league and more of a chance to have both non NSW teams in the final, which will affect ticket sales. The AFL GF always sells out no matter who is in it, but not so the NRL GF - and I suspect the A league GF.
Garry
Roar Rookie
"As a result, the APL received less money than anticipated from Network 10 this season, and distributions to the 12 clubs were lower as a result - requiring A-League executives to look for another source of income to help make up the shortfall and keep some of the more precariously placed clubs from falling over." .. so boycott and kill off your cliubs completely, such a foolhardy move
Garry
Roar Rookie
I thought the GP shouldve stayed on Philip Island where it was an event..now its passed around to the highest bidder.
Punter
Roar Rookie
No problems all good Redb.
Redb
Roar Guru
Hi Punter, was certainly not implying anything about the ethic clubs. The A League was created to move away from that era though. The essential point is the competition is still relatively new and the GF as an event probably not in the top rung of National sporting events to be tendered like this. Also the point of difference from the AFL/NRL GFs has been lost.
chris
Guest
Victoria has been a distant third behind Qld and NSW when it comes to bidding for tournaments and all of the noise against the WC bid came out of Victoria. How many games were played in the Asian cup in Melbourne? This is why Victoria is 3rd behind NSW and Qld when it comes to football.
Punter
Roar Rookie
Understand, but too many people think football only started in 2005 in Australia which is so wrong, Just because the game was more ethnic dominant prior to that doesn't mean there was not a strong history there. Likewise before Swans, West Coast & Adelaide came into the AFL, there was a thing called the VFL.
Censored Often
Roar Rookie
In fairness to every state, and especially our agrieved friends down south this event should be moved arund to a different veunue each year. I'm sure they'll agree to add the AFL GF, NRL GF, Boxing Day Test, F1 GP and Moto GP as well. In the interest of fairness I mean...
Redb
Roar Guru
Hi Punter, not sure what happened to my reply yesterday, I was talking about the A League comp Grand Final as an event, not the game in OZ prior to that which had strong ethnic clubs like Marconi,etc. .
.kraM
Roar Rookie
You are incorrect
.kraM
Roar Rookie
How dare they have an alternate kit
Dennis
Guest
But the crowd record for any A League game whether final or regular season is 60;880 for WSW v Sydney FC
Stevo
Roar Rookie
Professional sports being run by corporate suits as a money making venture is clearly not new, not here or anywhere else. Think European Super League idea. News Corps 1997 rugby Super League push. Using the word 'product' is akin to Gillon McLachlan referring to the AFL as an 'industry.' Again a reference to the AFL as a money making venture that employs many people. It's helpful when talking to politicians to get them to think that the AFL is inextricably linked, in a financial sense, to the wellbeing of the community. That's the political story line that the AFL uses to catch a polly 'hook, line and sinker.' If we thought Football Australia made some less than ideal decisions in relation to the A-leagues, maybe we're going to be in for a pretty bumpy ride with the APL.
HR
Roar Rookie
Would be easy enough if the finals series was done away with.
HR
Roar Rookie
"It may not be a popular decision but let’s see how it goes as the alternative is nothing." No. The alternative was keeping a system that typically got big crowds to attend the biggest game of the season, encouraged casual fans to attend in the city in which it was held, and converted some of them into long-term supporters. This nets the organization some cash for the next few years are the expense of all that, and with the added bonus of instantly turning all of the goodwill generated by the national team into anger at the administration.
HR
Roar Rookie
Had they finished top (like Adelaide did) and beaten their semifinal opponents in 90 minutes (ditto), neither of your stated issues would have eventuated. Perhaps Adelaide were just the better team on the day, eh?
HR
Roar Rookie
Poor comparison. This is more like buying a ticket to "Sydney Rock Music Performance", hoping that the headline act is AC/DC, and running the risk that you'll be seeing Coldplay instead. As for "attempting to elevate the final into an independent event these is not solely dependent on the competing teams", good luck with that. Without widespread public appeal or simply won't happen, and widespread public appeal builds on the back of supporters. This is a short-term sugar hit to the books, nothing more.
Maximus Insight
Guest
Let it be known that most of those "?s" were laughing emojis Grem is too much sometimes !
Maximus insight
Guest
7 day cooling off period ????????????????????
Stevo
Roar Rookie
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/soccer/victory-chairman-quits-apl-board-amid-bitter-fallout-over-sale-of-a-league-finals-to-sydney-20221213-p5c60q.html “Victory chairman quits APL board amid bitter fallout over sale of A-League finals to Sydney” Well the stoush is just beginning.